What-Cha

I got this from a friend who got it from a ‘’Mistery pack’’ (It’s cooler to call them mistery packs, right?) from What-cha. He gave me the bag and told me to enjoy the tea for a few days: He is a very good friend.
This tea is in ’’maocha’’ form (I don’t actually know if you can call this maocha) so it’s a very large, twisted leaf, kind of hard to make it fit in a small Gaiwan, the dry leaves have a lot of colors on it: greens, browns, some yellows. The smell of the wet leaf is a classic vegetal smell while the flavor is very light and fruity, in later steeps a bit of honey comes out too. The soup has a beautiful golden color.
After all, what this tea has in prettyness, it lacks in complexity, it’s a pretty straightforward tea and a very pleasant drink.

Love this stuff.

Burnt honey with a glossy, almost cloying sweetness-effect. Vanilla aroma.

I cant believe these GABA teas get such mixed reviews, whats not to like about burnt honey & vanilla?

I do it gongfu, slightly more aggressive than for shengs. Nom factor 10

I finished the last of this tea yesterday afternoon. I had hoped to post a review for it last night, but ended up spending more time than planned on my review of What-Cha’s Vietnam Gui Fei and never got around to it. I found this to be a decent, though rather boring black tea.

I prepared this tea Western style. I steeped around 3 grams (roughly the equivalent of 1 teaspoon) of loose tea leaves in 8 ounces of 203 F water for 5 minutes. I did not attempt any additional infusions.

Prior to infusion, the dry tea leaves emitted mild woody, malty aromas. After infusion, the bright amber tea liquor produced pronounced aromas of malt, citrus, molasses, toast, nuts, and wood. In the mouth, the tea opened with the expected notes of caramel, toast, malt, and molasses before rougher notes of black walnut, hickory, wood, and bitter orange peel took over the proceedings.

To me, this was nothing more and nothing less than a typical Assam. I have had worse, but I have also had far better. I think what hurt this one so much in my eyes was the lack of layering displayed by the individual flavor components. I know some may feel differently, but what I got was a crude juxtaposition of smoothness and sweetness up front and bitter, oily nuttiness, bitter citrus, and chewy woodiness on the back end. Aside from traces of malt, toast, and molasses that peeked through on the finish, there was virtually no integration between these two opposing sides. In the end, I could see this making an adequate breakfast tea, but that’s about it. If you are looking for a tea to enjoy on its own, you may want to look elsewhere.

A lot of goodness has already been written about this well known Oolong.
It was my first tea from Vietnam and easily became a favorite daily drinker.
Moreish.

The weather has turned colder here, so my sinuses are acting up yet again. To make matters worse, my senses of smell and taste are once again spotty. I’m still not back at full strength from the severe respiratory infection I’ve been fighting off for the past couple of weeks either. Since I can’t properly evaluate them right now, all of those lovely green teas and high mountain oolongs will have to wait. Fortunately I can still get something resembling the full effect from bug-bitten and/or more heavily roasted oolongs such as this one.

I prepared this tea gongfu style. After a quick rinse, I steeped 6 grams of loose tea leaves in 4 ounces of 195 F water for 10 seconds. I followed this infusion up with 12 subsequent infusions. Steep times for these infusions were as follows: 12 seconds, 15 seconds, 20 seconds, 25 seconds, 30 seconds, 40 seconds, 50 seconds, 1 minute, 1 minute 15 seconds, 1 minute 30 seconds, 2 minutes, and 3 minutes.

Prior to the rinse, the dry tea leaves emitted aromas of honey, nectarine, and wood. After the rinse, the honey, nectarine, and wood aromas intensified and were joined by scents of osmanthus, toast, and roasted almond. The first infusion produced a similar, though more balanced bouquet. I was able to detect thin notes of wood, roasted almond, toast, osmanthus, nectarine, apricot, and honey in the mouth. Subsequent infusions featured more prominent impressions of honey, toast, roasted almond, apricot, osmanthus, and nectarine balanced by emerging lemon, orange, and rose aromas and flavors. Subtle traces of herbs and minerals were also detectable on the finish. Later infusions were quick to wash out, though I could still detect subtle herb, honey, toast, wood, citrus, and rose notes beneath the mineral presence.

To be clear, this was far from a bad tea, but I could not help comparing it unfavorably to the last couple of Taiwanese Gui Fei oolongs I have tried. The main problem I have with this tea is that it was too similar to a typical Taiwanese Gui Fei for me to consider it unique, yet it displayed just enough subtle differences for one to deduce that it was not a Taiwanese tea. I’m probably being a bit harsh here because this was far from a bad tea, but it was hard for me to figure out how to take it. I couldn’t quite compare it directly to classic Taiwanese takes on the style, yet could not quite treat it as a unique twist on the style either. Overall, I liked the citrus and rose notes, as well as the pronounced bready, nutty, and honeyed characteristics, yet I would also probably not reach for this over a Taiwanese Gui Fei if that makes any sense.

I rested this cake for several months before completely opening the wrapper.
The dry leaf was tantalizing fruity, I picked off a small piece to rinse and flash steep in a gaiwan. The steeped tea offered fleeting stone fruit mouth feels with raw bitterness and taste of char. After a few steeps I decided to break the cake and let the tea rest in a stoneware container. I check and taste it occasionally to see how it is coming along. Think I have to forget it for at least another year.

I’m still figuring out whether I like this tea or not. I’m leaning more towards enjoying it, then not enjoying it. When I opened the package it smelled overwhelmingly of movie theater popcorn. While that’s not a bad thing, it was a much stronger smell then I was anticipating. I’m on my first steep now, and it has quite an overpowering taste. I hope that when I steep it again the flavor will itself mellow out. It took me a few minutes to figure out what exactly my first flavor impression was but, I finally put my finger on it, it reminds me of artichokes.

GCTTB Going to be a few of these today if i can have quick breaks while working.

This was sort of middle of the road for me. Not a bad tea, decent cup of slightly honeyed brew…but nothing out of this world. it was smooth and enjoyable, but not a tea i must have in my cupboard. Happy to drink it again if it comes around though :)

The dry leaf of this tea smells melon fruity delicious. Tossing the leaves into a warm gaiwan, I notice a wet hay smell that I typically associate with silver needle and bai mu dan teas.

The first steep (20s at 175F) brews up a little bit lighter in color than a shou mei. It’s delicious and thick with notes of sweet citrus and spices. I notice a little bit of bitterness on the finish that I think could have been avoided by cutting this first steep down to 15s. This is the bottom of my sample bag as well so I think some of the broken leaves probably contributed to that.

It’s hard to believe that this tea isn’t scented or flavored in any way (I mean that in a good way). The citrus flavor is so obvious and sweet.

This tea continues to be delicious in subsequent steeps despite my accidental overbrewing. Note to anyone who reads this comment before trying this tea for the first time – use lighter parameters than you normally would for a strip oolong. I would start at 15s followed by 10s, 10s, 15s, 20s, etc.

I normally don’t get too excited about dragon well, but this one really made me sit up and pay attention.

I steeped 1g of leaves grandpa style in a tall glass teapot. The dry leaf greets you with a wonderful aroma of roasted vegetables. The taste is a medley of green veggies. I picked out notes of snap pea, edamame, and green beans. It’s nutty, but not overly so and has a juicy, thick mouthfeel. There’s a depth of flavor here you don’t usually see in dragon wells, which tend to be subtler than other green teas.

The longevity of this tea is remarkable. I started brewing with 175 F water and due to laziness didn’t bother reheating the water when refilling yet it maintained a robust flavor and the cooler temperature brought out more sweetness.

I was a bit apprehensive about ordering this tea because dragon wells are usually best when fresh and this was already several months old. However the flavor was still spectacular. I can only imagine how amazing it must have tasted when the tea was freshly harvested in the spring.

An interesting change of pace from regular Japanese sencha. Closer to a Chinese green tea in character, it has long needle like leaves that when steeped give a pale yellowish green liquor and a buttery, clean vegetative taste with a hint of chestnut in the finish. However it lacks the umami and grassiness of a real sencha. Think of it as a Chinese green tea minus the nuttiness.

Taiwanese green teas from my experience are pretty mellow and this one is no exception. It’s low on astringency and has a soft and mild flavor. Personally I found it a a bit bland for my taste but I think this would be a good green tea for newcomers.

Started the day with the full rich body of this delightful thing. Butter cream with a gentle sugar melon-like sweetness, followed by steadily emerging vegetal and floral sips in subsequent steeps. Each sip has somehow a bright flavour which meshes nicely with the spring sunlight, even though it continues to be winter here with chill and snow. I might call it a day at steep five now, or perhaps not.

Butter and floral sweet, honeysuckle if I squint. And then, slight gentle vegetal green, like quickly steamed young bok choy.

This tea is really growing on me. Perhaps it takes my tastebuds a bit of time to transit from my daily black teas to the subtleties of oolong and the gentle taste arrangements and rearrangements of one steep to the next. This tea is a bit of a kaleidoscope of milk, butter, coconut, honey, with the slightest bit of green. A masterpiece.

This cup is disappearing in greedy gulps after my initial slow luxurious sips once it had cooled enough for drinking.

Even when it begins to wane after five or six steeps, it is still lovely.

This really really nice milk oolong with cream and lovely floral notes is taking me now into a still very flavourful fifth steeping. Perfect tea to be drinking on a sunny warm day. The weather seems to think it is spring here. I’m certain it’ll snap to its senses soon and plunge us directly into the deepfreeze we in February deserve and look forward to.

The dry leaf smells like sweet milk chocolate and is made up mostly of fuzzy pale golden buds. In a warm gaiwan, the leaf smells intensely of chocolate and then fruits. Kind of a fruity trail mix sort of thing.

Starting with a 10 second steep, the tea is lightly sweet and the primary flavor is malt. I push the tea a little harder on the second steep and am rewarded with some of the chocolate I noticed in the dry leaf and decent thickness.

I’m met with some bitterness and astringency in later steeps but the overall profile remains much the same. This tea is fine but unfortunately I think it smells better than it tastes in the cup.

I know it’s been a while since I’ve written. It’s been a while since I’ve tried a new tea! I’ve mostly been sipping down flavored stuff lately.

This one was perfect for this afternoon, since I started the morning off with a green. Wet leaf smells of caramel and chocolate. It reminds me a bit of some Chinese blacks, aroma-wise. There could be a little orange peel in there, something fruity. The brew smells of a weaker version of the same. However, a coworker said he got mushrooms off of the brew, so…who knows?

I brewed this one strong, like Valerian steel. I poured that entire 10g into my 155ml gaiwan and gave it a good 5 seconds. It’s strong! Malted, bitter orange caramel bomb. The brew is orangey red in its anger, and very Indian tasting.

As strong as I brewed it, I’m half expecting it to get out of the cup and run away. But for the expected bitterness, there’s very little astringency. A credit to the leaf?

I

My dear friend gave a very generous portion of this tea. I’ve wanted to try it, but wow, this amount is insane.

Anyway, this tea works Gong Fu and I’ve yet to do it Western. It is a very dry tea-so dry that I remember this tea is literally made of twigs. ‘Autumn leaf pile’ is right and I get a very fall feel though it’s not bad now in winter. There is a little bit of a fruit quality that I associate with white in the background-lychee is close, maybe honey, but it’s buried beneath the leaves in taste. A bit smoky too. Yeah, it’s on the complex side.

I’m not sure if I like it or not though I thought I would. Maybe a few more tries might get me to change my mind. It’s dry overall.

I brewed this one up Western, but may not have used quite enough leaf. Either that or it was just a very light tasting tea. I got a bit of raisiny fruity sweetness and some malt, but those notes were hard to pick out as this tea was just too light – I used about 4g in 8oz.

I drank this one immediately after the “Vietnam Red Buffalo Oolong”, and in that one I detected what I thought was a hint of cinnamon. THIS one also has that taste, but much much stronger, so I thought for a second I’d somehow cross-contaminated! But nope, it just really has a strong spicy-cinnamon note to me. When my roommate smelled it however (she didn’t taste) she said “smokey” instead. So I drank again, and after thinking on it, I suppose it’s possible I’m interpreting certain “smoke” flavors as “cinnamon”. I’ve had some bad run-ins with icky “smoke” tasting teas, but I like this one, so perhaps my mind is just trying to give the “good” ones a different word than “smoke”. Anyway…food (or drink) for thought!

I have an odd memory of strongly disliking this tea, so I have left this sample lingering for quite some. However, today I decided to give it another go, and I am very glad that I did. This is a surprisingly decent aged oolong. The rolled leaves are slightly darkened with notes of rich honey, raisin, dry grass, and plum, with an undertone of burnt sugar resin. I warmed my gaiwan and dumped the pebbles in. The scent opens into some roast with plum, tobacco, and fruity but dry aroma. I washed the leaves once and started steeping. The taste begins with a fantastic flourish! A strong smooth note of graham cracker, crystal sugar, with the fruity tones of apricot and pear. The brew is thick and lasting with a wonderful plum aftertaste. I really enjoyed that first cup. However, the brew progressively gets woodier and darker with each steep. The second steep is an in between state of fruity sweetness and woody dryness. The third steep is nothing special. This is what I call I one steep wonder, but it was pretty wonderful. With this tea, I recommend high temperature and longer steep time, for the roasted rolled balls need time to open and thicken the soup. The qi is a bit odd, for I can only sense a lot of head compression. I enjoyed the first taste of this tea, and I wish it would have lasted.

https://www.instagram.com/p/BQQSBd2A_KG/?taken-by=haveteawilltravel

First steep of this I get a very prominent floral taste. No astringency or bitterness, just flowers, flowers everywhere, up my nose and in my mouth. Haha. It’s also a wee bit cinnamony/spicy, sort of in conjunction with the floral.

Comparing this one to Ted Buffalo. Turns out a bit lighter which makes it great to drink alone while the Red Buffalo is bold enough to drink while eating something as well.

Semi sweet, a little texture, and some depth that comes through the oxidation that mimics a black tea in taste but an oolong in all other regards.

Good tea, but not as bold as I would want this style to be.